How Much Of A Problem Is Michigan's Defense?

The mantra that "defense wins championships" isn't restricted to football, and that's starting to get kicked around as a potential problem for Michigan when the bullets start flying in March. Luke Winn gets the first kick at the can by leaving them out of a five-deep Prime Title Contenders tier in his recent column:

You might be asking, what about Michigan? If the Wolverines' profile stays the same, they could be the most interesting test-case of this NCAA tournament. They have the nation's best offense but only the No. 45 defense -- not red-flag-worthy, but well worse than any champ from the past 10 years. Michigan cutting down the nets in Atlanta would be a breakthrough statement for the power of offense.

Despite not playing, Michigan has risen to 39th since he put up his column. There is plenty of time for Michigan to get right in this metric.

But let's say they finish the season about where they are now. This seems like something of an issue. Winn assembled the last ten years of Elite Eight teams and found that relatively few found themselves outside of the top 25 in defensive efficiency.

If Michigan was to make the Final Four with its current defensive numbers they would be better than only four teams in the past ten years—the dual outsiders from a couple years back, Dwyane Wade's Marquette team, and TJ Ford's Texas team. Those are kind of grim odds.

However, not many of the teams to make it were the #1 offense in the country, either. And the ranks can be misleading here. As mentioned, they have slid up six spots whilst eating cheeseburgers the last few days, and if they were to shave a single bucket off 100 Hypothetical Opponent possessions, they'd leap up another 11 spots. The margins here are slim.

Meanwhile Michigan is leading the charts on offense by a mile. Their adjusted efficiency is 3.6 points clear of #2 Florida. You could hack off 3.5 points of that, toss it on Michigan's defensive numbers, and come up with a pairing of the country's #1 offense with the 16th-best defense and then you're looking at a tier I contender, no questions asked.

The point is that maybe the margins matter here, and the wheat gets separated from the chaff by differential. How does Michigan stack up there? Pretty well.

Team

Conf

Adjusted Offensive Efficiency

AOE RK

Adjusted Defensive Efficiency

DOE RK

Efficiency Differential

Florida

SEC

121.7

2

80.8

2

40.9

Michigan

B10

125.3

1

90.2

39

35.1

Indiana

B10

121.1

4

86.6

15

34.5

Louisville

BE

115.1

13

80.8

1

34.3

Duke

ACC

117.4

8

83.5

4

33.9

Minnesota

B10

118.6

6

88.1

27

30.5

Syracuse

BE

114.5

14

84.6

7

29.9

Pittsburgh

BE

117.3

9

87.7

21

29.6

Kansas

B12

113.2

17

84.1

5

29.1

Gonzaga

WCC

121.4

3

93.6

76

27.8

Arizona

P12

115.8

12

88

25

27.8

Creighton

MVC

120.3

5

92.6

59

27.7

Ohio St.

B10

112.7

19

85.5

8

27.2

VCU

A10

112.5

20

86.3

13

26.2

Wisconsin

B10

112.3

22

86.7

16

25.6

Kentucky

SEC

110.7

29

87.7

22

23

Cincinnati

BE

108.4

43

86.3

12

22.1

Colo St

MWC

113.7

16

91.7

50

22

Mich St.

B10

109.7

35

87.8

24

21.9

[numbers collected before last night's games, so this overrates Louisville a little.]

Florida has wrecked everyone they've played save K-State and Arizona and are far-and-away leaders here; Michigan is second. This is pretty close to the Kenpom rankings themselves, obviously.

Defense Wins Just As Much Championship As Offense

First: the Defense Wins Championships cliché doesn't stand up. I took Winn's data set, grabbed their year-end adjusted efficiency numbers, and got their efficiency differentials. I gave each team a point for each win they acquired after reaching the elite eight (3 for the champ, 2 for the runner up, etc.), and then acquired r values* between those three metrics of quality and wins. Over the decade-long sample there is basically no difference between offense and defense when it comes to acquiring wins—offense is actually ahead fractionally—and looking at the two metrics together is significantly more predictive:

AOE R value: 0.28

DOE R value: 0.26

Efficiency Differential R value: 0.39

If you were so inclined you could argue that there's a winnowing effect that prevents poor defensive teams from reaching the Elite Eight, but then you're trying to find a mechanism that works for the first three games of the NCAA tournament only to abandon teams in the crunch—not likely.

I like this result. It is intuitive. It implies that scoring two points at one end is as valuable as preventing two at the other. It won't get me on Malcolm Gladwell's Christmas card list or acquire me a professorship at Princeton, but unlike the things that do bring those benefits this result makes sense.

So… as long as Michigan's efficiency differential remains sky high, they've got as good a shot at the title as anyone. Except Florida. Long way to go, obviously; if Michigan ends the season as they stand today they should be amongst the title favorites.

*[A brief word on R values: these are not significant, but something can be suggestive without reaching levels of statistical rigor necessary to declare you've found the Higgs Boson. In this case they're just one datapoint we are making a reasonable argument with, instead of flogging ridiculous things like David Berri does. As always, R can change wildly depending on the parameters you set.]

A COUPLE OF OTHER THINGS

I took the top eight teams so far this year and threw them in with the 80 teams already in this sample and ranked by efficiency margin. There's good news and bad there. The good: Michigan is a notch above last year's Kentucky outfit! The bad: Florida is #2 in the entire sample, behind only the dominant Kansas title team in 2008 and just ahead of the dominant UNC title team in 2005. Florida is ridiculous right now.

Everyone looks good, in fact. Five of the eight teams from this year are in the top quarter of the sample and all are in the top half. I assume there's a flattening effect that goes on as conference play and mean regression brings high-fliers to earth; also this group of teams has not been ruthlessly culled by the VCUs and Butlers of the world. Strong teams also cry, Mr. Lebowski.

The table is after the jump for anyone so inclined.

[AFTER THE JUMP: A TABLE! WOO!]

Champs are bolded. This year's top eight in italics.

Rank

Year

Team

AOE

DOE

Delta

Finish

Pts

1

2008

Kansas

125.3

82.8

42.5

NC

3

2

2013

Florida

121.7

80.8

40.9

???

???

3

2005

UNC

126.6

86.7

39.9

NC

3

4

2007

UNC

123.9

85.6

38.3

EE

0

5

2004

Duke

123.5

85.4

38.1

FF

1

6

2007

Florida

125.4

87.4

38

NC

3

7

2010

Duke

123.5

85.9

37.6

NC

3

8

2008

Memphis

121.3

83.9

37.4

RU

2

9

2008

UNC

126

89.4

36.6

FF

1

10

2005

Illinois

124

87.4

36.6

RU

2

11

2008

UCLA

119.7

83.9

35.8

FF

1

12

2007

OSU

123.7

87.9

35.8

RU

2

13

2007

Kansas

117.8

82.2

35.6

EE

0

14

2007

Georgetown

124.8

89.3

35.5

FF

1

15

2013

Michigan

125.3

90.2

35.1

???

???

16

2012

Kentucky

122.9

88.2

34.7

NC

3

17

2009

UNC

124.2

89.6

34.6

NC

3

18

2013

Indiana

121.1

86.6

34.5

???

???

19

2004

UConn

119.9

85.5

34.4

NC

3

20

2013

Louisville

115.1

80.8

34.3

???

???

21

2013

Duke

117.4

83.5

33.9

???

???

22

2003

Kansas

117.1

84.2

32.9

RU

2

23

2007

UCLA

116.8

84

32.8

FF

1

24

2005

Louisville

121

88.7

32.3

FF

1

25

2012

OSU

117.4

85.2

32.2

FF

1

26

2006

Florida

119.4

87.2

32.2

NC

3

27

2003

Kentucky

117.5

85.3

32.2

EE

0

28

2008

Texas

123.8

91.8

32

EE

0

29

2004

Okie St

119.8

87.8

32

FF

1

30

2009

UConn

116.6

84.8

31.8

FF

1

31

2008

Louisville

115.2

84.1

31.1

EE

0

32

2005

MSU

121.9

90.8

31.1

FF

1

33

2011

Kansas

119.3

88.8

30.5

EE

0

34

2013

Minnesota

118.6

88.1

30.5

???

???

35

2004

St Joe's

118

87.6

30.4

EE

0

36

2009

Pitt

122.2

92

30.2

EE

0

37

2006

Texas

118.8

88.7

30.1

EE

0

38

2013

Syracuse

114.5

84.6

29.9

???

???

39

2010

Kentucky

116.1

86.3

29.8

EE

0

40

2007

Memphis

116.6

86.9

29.7

EE

0

41

2013

Pittsburgh

117.3

87.7

29.6

???

???

42

2006

UConn

119.2

89.9

29.3

EE

0

43

2009

Louisville

113.4

84.2

29.2

EE

0

44

2003

Arizona

115.9

87

28.9

EE

0

45

2004

Georgia Tech

114.1

85.2

28.9

RU

2

46

2010

Baylor

120.4

91.7

28.7

EE

0

47

2009

Mizzou

117.8

89.1

28.7

EE

0

48

2012

Kansas

114.2

86

28.2

RU

2

49

2005

Kentucky

114.6

86.5

28.1

EE

0

50

2006

UCLA

113

85.1

27.9

RU

2

51

2005

Arizona

119.9

92.1

27.8

EE

0

52

2012

Syracuse

118.1

90.3

27.8

EE

0

53

2011

Kentucky

118.1

90.4

27.7

FF

1

54

2010

K-State

116.6

88.9

27.7

EE

0

55

2010

WVU

117

89.4

27.6

FF

1

56

2006

Villanova

117

89.9

27.1

EE

0

57

2007

Oregon

120.3

93.4

26.9

EE

0

58

2008

Xavier

118.4

91.7

26.7

EE

0

59

2009

MSU

115

88.4

26.6

RU

2

60

2008

Davidson

117.7

91.3

26.4

EE

0

61

2003

Texas

119.8

93.4

26.4

FF

1

62

2009

Oklahoma

118.3

92.1

26.2

EE

0

63

2012

UNC

114.7

88.6

26.1

EE

0

64

2004

Kansas

114.4

88.3

26.1

EE

0

65

2005

Wisconsin

114

88.2

25.8

EE

0

66

2003

Syracuse

116

90.2

25.8

NC

3

67

2006

Memphis

112.9

87.4

25.5

EE

0

68

2011

UConn

115.7

90.3

25.4

NC

3

69

2009

Villanova

115

89.6

25.4

FF

1

70

2012

Florida

121.1

95.9

25.2

EE

0

71

2004

Xavier

114.9

89.8

25.1

EE

0

72

2003

Oklahoma

112.2

87.4

24.8

EE

0

73

2003

Marquette

121.8

97.5

24.3

FF

1

74

2006

LSU

109.9

85.7

24.2

FF

1

75

2010

Butler

110.2

86.2

24

RU

2

76

2011

UNC

112.1

88.5

23.6

EE

0

77

2011

Florida

116.1

93

23.1

EE

0

78

2012

Baylor

116.2

93.4

22.8

EE

0

79

2003

MSU

110

87.4

22.6

EE

0

80

2004

Alabama

115.6

93.7

21.9

EE

0

81

2010

MSU

112.9

91.1

21.8

FF

1

82

2012

Louisville

105

84

21

FF

1

83

2011

Arizona

117.3

96.4

20.9

EE

0

84

2005

WVU

116.6

95.7

20.9

EE

0

85

2010

Tennessee

108.9

88.5

20.4

EE

0

86

2006

GMason

110

90

20

FF

1

87

2011

Butler

111

94.4

16.6

RU

2

88

2011

VCU

112.7

97.7

15

FF

1

As this should make clear, efficiency is an edge but randomness is gonna random. Unless Michigan can significantly distance themselves from the pack their median expectation in the tournament is an Elite Eight loss.

Crux of the argument is that they are up among the nation's leaders in "shutdown stretches" defined as a 4 min period in which the opponent does not score. The article doesn't speak to when these stretches occurred, so some of these could be biased to lower ranked opponents or less critical game situations, but it's an interesting stat...

Thanks for taking a look at Winn's column. I usually like his articles but was annoyed by how he wrote off Michigan without talking about how good the offense has been. His argument was way too simple and I am either too lazy or dumb to fisk it.

Instead, I settled for the reductio ad absurdum argument of a theoretical team with a bottom-50 defense that always scores. They can't lose but would be eliminated using his criteria.

I don't think there was much to complain about in Winn's article unless you are a Michigan homer that dismisses any facts not pointing to Michigan being a Final Four team.

KenPom has proven to be very accurate at predicting which teams are actually better or worse than just the W-L record would indicate. Not perfect (it's flawed!), but more accurate than any other ranking system.

Enforcing how accurate KenPom is, Winn points out how very few teams not in the KenPom top 25 for both AdjO and AdjD make the Elite 8. Of course there are exceptions, but still accurate enough to raise red flags about teams not in the top 25 for both (especially AdjD).

Winn's post doesn't dismiss Michigan, but it does a fairly good job of pointing out why some teams should have red flags when predicting how far they'll go in the tournament and then saying why Michigan should get one of those red flags. This doesn't eliminate Michigan from making the Elite 8, but it's good data to consider when predicting tourney fates.

FWIW I think this will be good to revisit at the end of the regular season. Michigan has been playing a ton of freshmen minutes, and freshmen are usually slower on the defensive uptake. Freshmen are also the most likely to improve their defensive ability as the season progresses, so maybe Michigan will climb the AdjD rankings as the freshmen improve their contributions to the team defense.

Florida's going to be an interesting case for advanced stats. On the one hand, their efficiency stats are remarkable, and they're housing nearly everyone they play. Their closest win in 13 points, and their next closest is 17. On the other hand, the two times they've been in competitive games, they've collapsed down the stretch, including an epic collapse at Arizona when they led by, IIRC, 3 scores with under a minute left. This pattern mirrors their struggles in close games for the last few seasons.

The weakness of the SEC means that their efficiency numbers are likely going to remain off the charts. They only have 2 RPI top 50 and no top 25 games left. Their remaining conference schedule includes 7 games against RPI 100+ teams. The SEC is bad, man. It also means they're not likely to have a bunch of experience in one of the key "intangibles" that gets thrown out by skeptics of advanced stats, ie, "handling pressure,' "clutchness," whatever you want to call experience down the stretch in close games.

And a one-off tournament is obviously not the best measure of the predictive success of statistical measures. Florida's combination of blowout wins and losses in their only close games does make me skeptical of how well they'll react when they play tournament opponents who aren't overmatched and have a lot more experience in late game scenarios.

I have seen them go on crazy runs, but the thing that stands out to me, and something that isnt measured in these other ranking and stats is this teams crazy ability to not allow the other teams to sustain runs. outside of the ohio state game nobody has really bee able to sustain runs against us. a big part of that, I feel is our #1 offense that just doesnt go cold for long stretches because somsone always come up with that dagger shot to kill a run.

That is a HUGE advantage in college because its based so much on runs and momentum, that and we are still a young team playing WAY more mature than our age. grinding out B1G games is going to go a long way come tourney time.

I also have seen that some of the easy second chance points teams are putting up on us are partially because we are small underneath and are are forcing so many outside shots that since we already out on the perimeter our wings are just conceding that if our bigs dont get the board they are on thier own selling out completly that if our bigs do get the boards the race is on. which also contributes to our #1 offense.

It will be interesting to see if we move to a moar balaced approach as the B1G season goes on or if we keep pushing the way we are.

Either way, this team is freakishly athletic and VERY careful with the ball (sans Timmy), unlike a lot of the other teams of the elite eight of recent years.

For instance, that 2009 NC NC team finished 16th in ADE but it's number 89.6 is very close to Michigan's and would place them currently 38th -- would they somehow be ranked higher this year? Would their defense not come out to 89.6 this year?

Could you plausibly set up the limit as being achieving a certain number on defense vs rank? Maybe there are more offensive and defensive oriented years?

Since 2003, 9 teams have had an AdjO at 124.0 or above. Out of these 9 teams 6 (UNC '05, GTown and Fla '07, UNC and KU '08 and UNC '09) made the Final Four. The three that did not were Wake Forest in '05 with the 72nd ranked AdjD (95.0), OSU in '11 with the 5th AdjD (88.4) and Missouri last year with the 115th AdjD (98.4).

Not that history should be a predictor, but this limited history would seem to show that if you have a top AdjO over the last 10 years you have a good chance to make the FF unless your Defense is a trainwreck.

If you were to simply base off of rankings of AdjO, over the last 10 years the #1 and/or #2 AdjO has made the FF 11 out of 20 times no matter their AdjD ranking.

Sometimes your offense leaves you (Nebraska, OSU first half), but defense rarely does. Now sometimes opposing offenses go off regardless of defense (Ohio last year), but the point is still relatively solid. Not having a great defense doesn't necessarily mean you won't go deep into the tournament, you just can't have an offensive let down, making it much harder over a stretch of games. If you're the other way around (top notch defense, mediocre offense) you are a more consistent team, but maybe not the upside from one game to the next.

Defense I think is more correlated to athleticism, size and effort and less correlated to skill, so it seems intuitive that it wouldn't leave you. Your opponent could get hot and make lots of shots in a row, but if they are all contested, you are getting blocks and steals and not allowing drives, I think it is less likely so. By being a good defensive team, you can get the opponent out of their game by forcing them to take bad shots, hurried shots, etc and that doesn't really depend much on luck but more so on effort and athleticism.

There would be variance in the shooting percentage of your opponents as they have good or bad luck from time to time, but forcing them into harder shots via defensive effort seems like something you can control. And when the opponent consistently takes harder shots, it makes it much less likely they will catch on fire offensively.

but there are plenty of places where variance can come into play on defense too. Where rebounds bounce, whether guys get into foul trouble (and whether officials choose to call borderline fouls). More fundamentally, if a good defender makes a certain rotation 9 times out of 10, there's variance involved in whether he makes it that particular time. It's just not as obvious as a team getting hot from 3.

It just seems that there is much less of it. Many of the "luck" or "variance" aspects that can be brought up for defense can also be brought up for offense. I think it all comes down to shooting a basketball. Shooting a basketball is a fine thing. I'm struggling to think of a better word than "fine", delicate perhaps, whatever the case, it's a type of thing that even a small thing being off drastically affects it.

Defense doesn't really have that to as much of a degree. That alone seems like it places more variance on the offensive end. Now yes, the other team deals with that too, and maybe they are tuned in that night, but as the poster above said, you don't have nearly as much variance in your defense so you're still making it more difficult for them.

I could be completely wrong and maybe it doesn't matter. I certainly agree with the premise that an average of the two is probably a better indicator than simply looking at just defense or just offense.

That being said, the variance of effort given on the defense end is much less than the variance in a teams ability to score. You can't just try harder and suddenly you're going to start making buckets, as in it's not nearly as dependent on effort.

Now I think the defensive number is probably a little scewed in this case too. During the regular season, the players probably aren't giving as much effort as they do during the tournament, though that probably comes close to balancing out over the course of the year, so the rankings are probably pretty close, but it's at least partially a variable another variable.

Now one thing about good defense is that it's dependent on you. You can't help it when you have a poor shooting night, but you can always play good defense. Now you also can't help it when the other team goes off, but at least you're making the other team earn it. I don't know, as an engineer I'm inclined towards statistics, but as someone that has played or coaches sports all his life, there is an intuitive aspect that sometimes statistics doesn't seem to catch. To me - while the correlation may not be as significant as many people make it out to be - I think there is definately some truth in the saying.

I think it's interesting to note just how balanced most of those NCAA champions are. All those NCAA champs rank in the Top 20 both offensively and defensively and 6 0f the 10 were ranked in the Top 10 in both offensive and defense.

"You could hack off 3.5 points of that, toss it on Michigan's defensive numbers, and come up with a pairing of the country's #1 offense with the 16th-best defense"

I took this a step further: Keeping their AdjO in the top ten. #10 ND is 8.3 points behind UM. Lop that off their AdjD and you see UM's offense at #10 with their defense becoming #3 in the country. It seems their offense is truly making up for their defense on an epic scale.

Another aspect of this that leaves me somewhat optimistic is that we are still so young. People forget that we are 338th out of 347 teams in experience per Kenpom. Hopefully some of these young guys like Stauskas, GR3 and McGary will start to see the intensity and physicality of defense now that we are playing OSU and MN etc and try to match it in their own games. Not sure that intensity is something you can re-create in practice against guys you play everyday. You would have to think that such a young team would be more likely to improve over the course of the season than would the avg team; although it would be interesting to see if any data backs up that theory.

Also, Burke was clearly more active defensively off the ball against Minnesota than he normally is. My hope is that after struggling against Craft again that perhaps he will try to take a page from his game and re-dedicate himself to improving his defensive game just by being more active on D.

If not, he describes the "Adjusted Offensive Efficiency" as the average number of points scored per 100 possessions against the average Division-1 defense. Similarly for Def. Efficiency. So the rankings can change both from how you perform from game to game as well as what the average D-I defense/offense is from day to day.

So effectively, KenPom is trying to "adjust" the offensive and defensive efficiency numbers per team per season against the strength of the overall D-1 field.

I don't really think that a regression analysis is appropriate here. It seems like you are "plotting" maximum NCAA Tourney Round (assuming the elite 8 is round "zero"...all that means is that the y-intercept changes, nothing meaningful would be added by counting the round of 64, 32, 16...) vs. AOE, DOE, and Delta OE and comparing the correlation statatistics for each group.

You would then compare the AOE, DOE, and Delta OE for the elite group in Winn's sample to the entirety of the NCAA (no need to add this year's teams). Determining which statistic has the largest effect size seems would more strongly test your hypothesis.

You could also see how effect size changes when you restrict the meaning of "elite". That is, what happens when you look at teams who made the FF (instead of just the EE)? What about just the RUs and NCs?

This does, however, address a bigger problem with Winn's analysis. Winn used ranks, and that was the wrong choice, especially when the difference between 1 and 10 might be much larger than the difference between 51 and 60. Being an outlier could be very helpful.

With every game ever invented, the person who wins is the one who scores the most. Being more offensive always is what the final result is judged on. Saying "defense wins championships" is just the equal statement to the double negative "lack of offense loses championships". The cliche has been crap since the first time it was uttered. It gains momentum because sports writers have to write about something, and interest is generated by taking opposing view points whether they are justified or not.

The most memorable anecdotal situation that demonstrates this in my memory is the Patriots versus Rams super bowl. This super bowl put a team with a stronger defense than offense (Tom Brady ended up the starter when Bledsoe was injured and out for the year) against a team with a stronger offense than defense. The game started out strong for the Patriots are they defense was able to blank the Rams offense, and even generate points (at least one pick six in my memory without googling it.) The Patriots always had a excellent field position in the beginning of the game, and the Patriots offense conservatively managed the ball, and put up more points. BUT, eventually the defense was wearing down, and the Rams offense got on a hot streak. The Patriots offense had now response, and with less than two minutes (maybe even less than one minute) left the Patriots got the ball with the game tied. John Madden made the cliche statement that every announcer makes when a team has the ball deep in their end. As he was saying, "the Patriots will clearly take a knee here and go into overtime" Brady drops back to pass, and through a series of quick short passes to the sidelines, he was able to get Vinatieri into range (which of course is like 55 yards even in snow) and the Patriots Offense won the game. Belichek knew that this was his best shot. Going to overtime was a 50/50 chance of getting the ball first in the exact same position. His defense was not going to hold up, because it hadn't held up for the remainder of the second half, and certainly not at all in the 4th quarter.

Another anecdote very similar is of course the 2011 Michigan - ND game. And in that game the programmed announcer response was that "clearly the coach is going to take the safe play". And yet in a decision of offensive bravado, Hoke took his shot, and the rest is Denard to Roundtree history. Offensive game winning history.

I think the analysis shows that Michigan is a young team with a lot of talent. That youth has a red flag on it's defensive skill, which is something that gets better with hard work and time together as a team. I don't think this article is pointing out anything John Beilein didn't already now when he recruited these players. But every game they play is another game they get better at Defense, and everyone except Trey Burke gets better at offense. ( I mean really, how much better can Burke get? Nebraska had to triple team him to take him out of the game, and OSU is the only team with the defensive skill to take him out with double teams).

Yes statistics are great for predicting what is likely to happen to a population in general and with enough data points and over a long period of time. But each event is it's own unique probability.

... though I agree: "Defense wins championships" is tough to justify in most sports. Basketball is probably the one in which it comes closest, though, because the average score is highest. (No one ever gets shut out in basketball.)

Put another way, you can't win unless you score. Preventing a score is not the same as scoring, and that tradeoff gets worse the fewer scores a team gets. In baseball, hockey and soccer, you'd be nuts to trade off preventing a point for scoring one, because shutouts are relatively common. In football it's less so, because shutouts are less common (and the defense can actually score too, unlike baseball).

In basketball? Preventing a bucket is, for all practical purposes, as good as making one, because you're effectively starting the game at 40-40 or so, instead of zero-zero.

It was briefly mentioned above, but is anybody else seeing dollar signs flashing right now when it comes to this study and filling out a tournament pool. I mean, the correlation between advancement in the tournament and the delta in AdjO and AdjD seems like a gold mine. I'm going to use this as a baseline this year when making my selections.

If I win, I'll gladly donate 10% of my winnings to MGoBlog or something else of Brian's choosing.

You make a good point re: the importance of matchups in a single-elimination tourney like March Madness. Now I enjoy following our guys, but confess I don't pay tons of attention to other teams. So my question to those of you who follow college hoops more closely is: who are the bad match-ups for us -- the teams we don't want to see in March? And what qualities make them Michigan's (potential) Kryptonite?

Obviously having an on-ball defender of Craft's caliber to disrupt Burke is a plus. What teams that we might meet past the first weekend of the tourney have a defender of that quality to harass Trey?

I've been calibrating this over the past few weeks. I watch a bit of basketball, not as much as I'd like, but I follow nationally to a decent extent. For starters, I think Florida is legitimately good; they were my "sleeper" last year and I did well because of their run as a 7/8 seed and damn near Final Four appearence.

Syracuse when they're on their A game. That would be a tough matchup. A great point guard matchup and Trish is a pretty good player. I think we could handle the vaunted 2-3 but it would make for an interesting game if we weren't shooting well.

Lousiville is a good team too but even before last night I thought them a vulnerable team (though, who isn't on the right night).

Duke with Kelly and Curry in the lineup healthy is a pretty good team but without even one of them (especially Kelly) they very are beatable by teams even less talented than Michigan.

And Kansas. They scare me more than anyone. Damn good squad and my pick as of now to win the NC.

(Note: This "material" isn't exactly groudbreaking, I know, but these teams are ranked where they are for good reason. I haven't seen too many other lower ranked/tiered teams that I could see giving Michigan trouble, yet, anyway. I will say, I think Oregon may be a godd under the radar team that may continue to climb the rankings, if for no other reason the Pac-12 not being great. I think there are some good basketball teams across the country this year, maybe not great as the Talking Heads seem so adament about having every year, and some of these teams I just mentioned are teams I feel have a legitimate shot at the Final Four and beyond.)